


Hour Of Dishonor

by Still_Floating



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Rating May Change, Spoilers, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_Floating/pseuds/Still_Floating
Summary: A running Caleb x Female OC story, spoilers up to episode 24 as of Chapter 3 (further spoiler alerts will come at the beginning of the chapters as needed). I'll try to update this weekly, but for now I posted the three chapters I have written.





	1. Not Thinking About Tomorrow

### Prologue: (Spoilers up to C2 E24)

I remember when I first met the Mighty Nein, one insignificant night in Zadash a large group came into the gentleman’s club I was “working for” that was downstairs to an inn. There was a couple of them that were quite the characters, one man with rather bright attire who was covered in tattoos; a cheery, excitable woman who seemed all too comfortable with everything happening, and a very charming but uncomfortable seeming fellow, but they weren’t who I noticed. The man who stood out to me was a dirty, but otherwise average seeming human. He didn’t seem to like the group he was with, not saying a word to any of them except the halfling girl by his side. I remember wondering if they were lost, which it turned out they were, and if he was okay. But I couldn’t think about it while I was working, and anyway it was none of my business.

I got off to a short break, and went over to get a drink from a friend of mine who was running the bar and found myself sitting next to the man who’s eye I couldn’t even catch while I was dancing. “Hi love.”

“Um, hello.” He was clearly trying not to stare at me, considering I was wearing my work attire. 

“Don’t strain yourself,” I said with a laugh, “I look like this for a reason.”

A small hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips. “I guess so.”

We talked on and off innocently until I finished my drink. “Lorelai, you have a customer,” Eldan informed me. 

“Alright, thank you.” I turned to the man, “Time to go.”

“Well Lorelai, see you around.”

“Maybe you will,” I said, smiling but knowing it wasn’t true. Groups like this were usually passing through for work and a good time. Besides, friendships weren’t in the cards for me at that time.

### End Prologue

I almost forgot about them, what with the events that would soon come in Zadash and with war beginning. So imagine my surprise when I walked into The Blushing Tankard one night in Hupperdook to see him and his friends beginning the Hour of Honor. I stepped up to watch, staying back in the hope that he wouldn’t notice me, but right before he took his first drink, he caught my eye and winked at me, then downed the tankard much faster than I would’ve thought possible for a man of his build. _Well that’s certainly a change from the man I met. Must have been an off night for him._ I smiled at him, and when he was done with his rather impressive round, he came right up to me. 

“Lorelai?” He asked, somehow managing to slur a single word quite badly before chuckling at himself and shaking his head. “What brings you here?”

Taken aback by the fact that he remembered me, I managed, “Passing through, trying to get a little further from everything going on in Zadash.”

“Us too. It’s getting messy there, yeah?”

“Yeah, were you guys there for all the shit that happened?”

“Most of it.”

“That was... Impressive by the way.”

He looked down and smiled. “I suppose. I wonder how they’re doing.” We walked back over to watch, cheering for his friends. The crowd got a bit rowdy after they officially beat Blemmy and his group, and I almost got knocked over by some idiot who couldn’t walk straight. Caleb stabilized me with one arm around my waist, and didn’t seem inclined to move it from there. Eventually, his cheery, blue-skinned friend noticed me. 

“Hi! I’m Jester.”

“Lorelai, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too!” She then leaned in and said something quietly to Caleb that I couldn’t quite catch.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you Jester.” Still, he freed my waist as she walked away, which bothered me, if only for a moment. 

As the alcohol sunk in for Caleb and I, we let go more and more over time, and conversation edged more towards flirting. We found a table and, as his friends worked their way upstairs to bed, we found ourselves still talking. When the little halfling girl passed, she gave him a nervous look, and he broke away for a minute to say something to her. 

“Alright, sorry about that.” 

“No problem, everything okay?”

“Yeah.” We talked for a bit longer and eventually he asked the question I was sort of dreading. “So, do you wanna head upstairs?”

My life at the old club flashed before my eyes, and I shrugged, attempting to seem casual. “Sure.”

He smirked, and we went up to his room, but I knew before we hit the bed that this wasn’t going to happen. First off, he was beyond blackout drunk, and I wasn’t exactly experienced in leading these situations. We talked some more, made out, and passed out together, not thinking at all about tomorrow.


	2. Pieces of The Story

### Caleb’s POV

I woke up hungover, and completely unable to remember the night before, which hadn’t happened in quite a while, it was hard for me to drink so much that I forgot anything, let alone a whole night. I shook my head and opened my eyes, noticing first I’d let the light burn out of oil rather than putting it out. _That's strange._ It was then that I realized someone distinctly _not_ Nott sized was asleep on my chest, and wearing less than I’d have hoped for. She was laying with her arms around my neck, cheek pressed into my shoulder, and slightly straddling my leg, consequently meaning her thigh was pressed against me. Her shirt was loose and riding up in the back from sleep, and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it, and guessing by feeling, she was only in her underwear. I was only dressed from the waist down.

I took a slow, deep breath, and considered how to deal with this. Clearly, Nott wasn’t here so this must have been planned, or else she’d walked in on something she didn’t want to see. As I tried to get that thought out of my head, I heard whomever this woman was whine quietly. _Oh dear, please just be waking up._ No such luck. She locked her ankles around my leg, and I sighed and gently shook her shoulder.

She sleepily came to, hiding her face against my neck, presumably because of the light, and sighed, freeing me, before sitting straight up and taking the blanket to cover herself. I recognized her to be Lorelai, from the club in Zadash. “Relax,” I said softly, feigning calm. She seemed to tense up more though as she took in her surroundings, and apparent partner from last night. “I take it this is as surprising to you as it was me.”

“Yeah... Y-You could say that.” She looked down and I recognized her breathing picking up in an all too familiar way to me. 

I looked away and located her clothes, setting them in front of her. “It’s alright, no need to panic. It happens.” I found my shirt and pulled it on. “Would you like me to step out for you to get dressed?” She shook her head, still nearing hyperventilating. “Alright, I’m not looking,” I said, laying back and closing my eyes until she sat back down and managed out a small “okay”.

She still wasn’t particularly covered, especially for the crisp morning air; clearly she intended to be in her own bed last night. I sighed as I saw presence fading from her eyes, and realized this panic attack wasn’t going away on its own. I put an arm carefully around her, hoping not to make it worse, and she leaned into me. “Okay, it’s okay. You’re alright.” I pulled her to my chest and whispered softly to her as she rode it out. Eventually, she relaxed and took one slow, shaky breath. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay. I understand. Look, we don’t even have to think twice about this if you’d rather not-” 

Just then, a knock sounded on the door and Jester’s voice rang out, “Caleb? You didn’t fall asleep in a ditch did you? Because you specifically asked me not to let that happen. I’m coming in!” She opened the door and smiled. “Oh, looks like you made it to bed just fine without my help.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jester, not the best timing.”

“I see that. Nice one Caleb, do you even remember last night?”

I looked over at the girl next to me, noticing how young she looked, and choosing to think about that later. “No, I don’t.”

“Finally there’s something that didn’t stick in that big head of yours. Well, this is Lorelai.”

“I know that much.”

“And to be fair, I totally warned you. I was like ‘Caleb if you need me to go set her up with Molly or something I can totally do that I bet he’d be down for that’ and you were like ‘No Jester I’m fine’ so I went to bed. Also you should look for your coin bag.”

“_Jester_.”

“No, not because of her, Beau’s is missing.”

I shook my head and found it resting on the floor. “It’s right here.”

“Well now we know she didn’t do it.”

“Alright Jester, why don’t you ask if Mollymauk and Fjord have lost theirs too?” I said, knowing by now distraction the best method with Jester.

“I should! Okay Caleb you have fun with her.”

“Also Jester, don’t mention this to-” I cut myself off, she was already gone. “Well, regardless, they probably won’t listen to her. She’s a bit... Eccentric.”

Lorelai looked more amused than anything. “I can see that. You really think the rest of the group won’t believe her?”

“Probably not, if you’d rather I lie about it, I can.”

“Well, I guess it’s fine.”

“So, where were you staying last night, before whatever happened here... happened?”

“I have a room in this inn too. When in Hupperdook.”

“Indeed. In that case would you like to head downstairs, maybe get some breakfast, and any other pieces of this story?”

“Sure, let me go grab some more coin from my room. As your friends have already found out, you really should only bring what you need with you here, at least at night.”

“That’s probably a good idea, yeah.”

### Lorelai’s POV

I headed back to my room, head still sort of reeling. I had never had a guy actually hold me through an episode like that, and this guy, Caleb, as it were, seemed to know exactly what I was going through. As I thought it through, I could vaguely remember some of last night; seeing Caleb and his group win the Hour of Honor, talking for a couple hours at least, and him asking me to come upstairs, but I for the life of me could not remember what happened after we hit the bedroom. I couldn’t tell if that meant we definitely had, or definitely had not done anything. _Just the thought sent me into a panic attack, there’s no way I could’ve handled doing it, even being that drunk._ I sighed, grabbing some money for breakfast, and heading downstairs to find Caleb.


	3. Wrapped Around His Weenie

He caught my eye and gave me an easy smile, clearly none of this was bothering him at all, which was more comforting than it should have been. He rested his arm on the back of the seat next to him, inviting me to sit down, and I gave a nervous glance to the rest of the group as I walked over. When I sat down, he whispered quietly to me, “It’s fine, they’ll be too focused on interrogating me.”

Sure enough, “So who’s she?” A tough looking woman who looked a little older than me asked. A large, green-skinned man next to her nudged her arm. “Oh. Sorry. I’m Beau, who are you?” She held a hand out to me.

“Better, I guess,” the man said quietly.

“Lorelai. Nice to meet you Beau.” I shook her hand, and no sooner was that awkward interaction done than did Jester speak up. 

“Lorelai was in Caleb’s room when I asked him to check for his money.”

“Alright then.” The man sitting next to Beau sighed. “Well, I’m Fjord, I’m sorry my friends have some problems with manners.”

“What are you talking about? If she likes Caleb then clearly she’s not big into manners anyway,” Jester said defensively. 

Caleb laughed, looking much more comfortable with them then the last time I’d seen him. “Ja, well that’s true actually.”

“Nice to meet you Fjord, and it’s okay, thank you.” 

“This very hungover guy next to me is Mollymauk, he had about double what we had to drink last night, so don’t mind if he’s a bit out of it,” Fjord continued.

“Sure did. I don’t regret a thing.”

“I’m Nott,” said the little halfling girl, very quietly. She seemed to hide her face slightly in her hood, but I didn’t think much of it, she was probably just shy. “There are two more of us, they’re coming.”

Just then, a tall, intimidating-looking woman came down with a _very_ large bird. “Sorry, she didn’t want to wake up.”

“She had a late night,” Jester said quickly. “This is Yasha and our sleepy bird friend is Kiri. She’s very sweet.”

“Yes, I am very sweet,” the bird mimicked adorably. 

“She’s so cute.”

“Isn’t she?” Jester said, seeming to be excited that someone else was saying so. “She kind of repeats anything she wants to.”

Caleb chimed in, “So be careful what you say around her.”

“Wrapped around his weenie!” Kiri yelled, as if to prove his point. 

“Got it,” I said with a laugh. “So um, should we ask?” I muttered to Caleb.

“Ja, so basically we’re trying to piece together what happened last night.”

“Well Cay-leb, when a boy and a girl drink together very much-” Jester started before Caleb cut her off.

“Ja I know that part. Not my first time Jester. What happened before that?”

“Oh, she came in and saw you doing the drinking contest, said something about it being impressive.”

“That was actually surprising last night. Nice job Caleb. Clearly it paid off,” Molly said with a proud smirk. 

“Then I asked if you were okay like I said earlier,”

“I believe you said your exact words were ‘I could set her up with Molly if you want?’” Caleb said, clearly trying to get her in trouble.

“You guys were still talking by the time the rest of us went to bed,” Nott said. “I asked if you wanted the room to yourself and you said yes, so I stayed with Beau and Jester.”

“It was actually kind of fun, we had a little sleepover.”

“Right, that explains how I got so drunk,” Caleb sighed. “Well, thank you guys for checking on me.”

“No problem Caleb.”

We ate our breakfast and the group decided to pressure some people who might have had their missing gold. Eventually, when it came time for them to leave the inn to investigate, I was surprised to find I didn’t want to separate. That said, I wasn’t going to impose on some guy who had probably already gotten more time with his one night stand than he’d intended. If I needed company so bad I could find someone else to mess with for the night. 

“You coming Lorelai?” Fjord asked me. 

“Nah, I don’t wanna intrude.”

“You sure?” Caleb asked, but I knew he was just being nice. 

“Yeah, thank you.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in a moment,” he said to the group. Once we were far enough away, he asked softly “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Yeah, I’m okay now. That was just a bit of a shock to wake up to. I don’t usually do this.” At least that last part wasn’t a lie.

“If you’re sure.” To my surprise, he kissed me. It was just a quick peck, but I hadn’t expected it. I blushed and looked away and he chuckled. “See you around Lorelai.”

“See you Caleb.”


End file.
